Those Amazing Saudis

Meanwhile, in the department of background, I’ve got a column at The Week about the incredible ability of the U.S.-Saudi alliance to get ever-stronger even as our interests and values diverge further and further:

How do the Saudis do it?

The “it” is managing to get successive American administrations to offer ever-greater support even as the political context that once justified that support changes beyond recognition. . . .

The robust endurance of the Saudi-American relationship is the perfect case for illustrating the perversities of geopolitics, but it is far from the only case. Why does the United States continue to maintain close ties with Pakistan, which has been more overtly hostile to American interests than Saudi Arabia has, and who has a regional rival in India of far more potential value to America than Saudi Arabia’s rival, Iran, could ever plausibly be? In part, because imposing sanctions on Pakistan failed to prevent it from going nuclear, but damaged America’s influence within the country, while we were willing to pay for even fitful cooperation against the Taliban and al Qaeda.

So, too, with Saudi Arabia. We no longer need their oil; we are no longer trying to keep their oil out of Soviet hands; our cultures and values have almost nothing in common. But inasmuch as we have interests in their region — and we do — we have a profound interest in them being less-hostile, less-threatening, than we imagine they might be if given their full druthers.

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4 Responses to Those Amazing Saudis

“The robust endurance of the Saudi-American relationship is the perfect case for illustrating the perversities of geopolitics, but it is far from the only case. “

You can say that again.

Egypt is an out-and-out dictatorship, complete with secret police torture squads, judicial murder and the like. Saudi Arabia is successfully aping the Israeli and Egyptian examples in involving us in its messes, using our military as a convenience, and getting us to help out when its gross human rights violations come to the attention of international bodies. In their favor, at least the Saudis pay their way.

From this absurd business with Qatar to our enabling the Saudi reduction of Yemen, from the strange-bedfellows arrangements in Syria to our unwitting arming of ISIS, from our subsidizing Israeli settlements that we beg Israel not to build, to our promoting “democracy” in the form of Egypt’s Muhammed al Sisi, our Middle East relationships are incoherent, morally fouling, and staggeringly costly.

From this absurd business with Qatar to our enabling the Saudi reduction of Yemen, from the strange-bedfellows arrangements in Syria to our unwitting arming of ISIS, from our subsidizing Israeli settlements that we beg Israel not to build, to our promoting “democracy” in the form of Egypt’s Muhammed al Sisi, our Middle East relationships are incoherent, morally fouling, and staggeringly costly.

The seeds of the next conflict are already been sown in Syria. The US did nothing overtly as long as ISIS and the Syrian government were slaughtering each other. Now that the Syrian government has the upper hand and ISIS is on its last legs, Washington has started to arm the Kurds, claiming that Kurdish help is needed to free Raqqa!

The Syrian government, having liberated Aleppo, has no need of anyone’s help to finish off ISIS but arming the Kurds sows the seeds for the conflict to come once Raqqa is freed.

These conflicts are of no interest to the average American and a drain on our resources – they are important only to our Israeli and Saudi paymasters.